


Justice

by LemonCakeDesign



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26022223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonCakeDesign/pseuds/LemonCakeDesign
Summary: Maybe if he says it enough, it'll be true one day.
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Justice

When you lie awake at night, what does it feel like?

It feels like Justice, you answer for a while. 

Some traitorous, soon-to-be dead part of you wonders,  _ how? How did they deserve it? _

How could they not? You watch your most target in the real world for a while, just to get a sense of where in Mementos you might find them. You watch him lift his children into the air, laughing and smiling as he hugs them. He gives his wife a kiss on the cheek and bile rises in your throat, choking and burning and you have to turn away.

Your father has never truly smiled at you. He thinks of you as a tool, nothing less, and he will not smile at you as you drink deep of his blood in the future.

There, you say, it is Justice. Because they take and take this happiness, something they could never have, and they flaunt it before you. Maybe they don’t know they’ve done it, maybe it was unintentional, but the legal system has never taken ignorance as a legitimate excuse, and neither will you.

You feel nothing as you tear his shadow’s throat out with your teeth, not even bothering to summon Loki.

After all, it is Justice.

Some time later, you meet a young man, and he smiles at you. You burn with hatred at him as he gives that, so freely, while he argues that the Phantom Thieves (an obstacle, even if they are like you, they cannot be your  _ friends _ , and such thoughts should die with the part of you that believes in the good of man) are dispensing their own brand of Justice.

Only one person can make that call, and that is  _ you _ .

It makes sense, later, when you discover who he is. He’s their leader, of course he would have to argue for their position. You try not to hold it against him.

You still do.

The first time you meet him outside of the studio, he seems quieter. More nervous to be around you. You play with him a bit, like a cat with a mouse, and he fumbles under your attention. You almost dismiss him as irrelevant, not worth your time, and there’s just enough of that poison in your voice that you wonder if he’ll ever come back. You don’t care either way.

He comes back.

Again and again, the leader of the Phantom Thieves comes back to you. You find yourself opening up to him, always saying more to him than you mean to. You justify it to yourself, saying that you need to share those sacred parts of yourself to get him to trust you, so that the Justice will be sweeter when you finally crush him.

How does it feel?

It feels like...Justice, right?

You kill Okumura, and you feel nothing. He wasn’t a friend, and by the end with his demands and his ambitions he could hardly be called a colleague to you and yours (they aren’t yours, they are your  _ father’s _ , and to forget is to forget your anger, and that is all that keeps you running at this point). So you feel nothing as you put the bullet through his head and walk away.

When the news breaks, you find him, watching from a distance. He looks pale and withdrawn, blaming himself no doubt. The bags under his eyes are darker than ever.

You feel  _ something _ . Something you can’t place, for days, until you realize it is the feeling of guilt. Not for killing Okumura, but for making Joker feel bad. You lie in bed for days, refusing to make appearances as you attempt to reconcile this feeling with how you’ve always known yourself.

Because to feel guilty is to care, and that you cannot afford.

You’re the one to suggest finally nailing the coffin shut on the Phantom Thieves to your father. He smiles-not-smiles with appreciation at your ambition, and you rankle when he takes the credit for the idea. But this is Justice, and you just add it to the list of his crimes. You can almost taste how sweet his blood is upon your tongue.

Joker finally defeats you, and you meet him in Mementos the next day. For a moment, you let your mask crack. He’s earned that, you think, and he defeats you again. You hate him so much as it happens, and beneath that is something you can’t name. Like the feeling of Robin Hood awakening for the first time. You push that away in favor of what you need to do, the part you need to play to achieve your goal. 

You play them like cheap fiddles. The Phantom Thieves dance through Sae’s palace to the sweet tune you play for them, and they don’t even see the betrayal coming when he leads the police into the cognitive world. It’s easy. It’s boring.

You wait to make your entrance as they play Sae. You can almost feel guilt for how things have gone for her; she’s only ever been nice to you, treating you as a colleague rather than a child, and she’s smart enough to see through your father’s lies. But you don’t care enough about her for the guilt to take root, and in the end she is only ever another stepping stone on your way to your true goal.

No, instead you stare at your hands. You can’t risk pulling out the gun in your coat, not in this open place, but you can imagine the feeling of it, heavy and familiar, and it makes something in your gut twist uncomfortably.

Sae exits the room, and that’s your cue. Enter, stage left. The props are set, the audience is waiting. Remember, you’re playing this part until you can place the barrel of this gun in your father’s mouth and watch him feel like you, age eight, as you discovered your mother’s body hanging from a rope and the world burned around you. The climax of the play is not until later, and Joker is just another set of lines you need to read.

He doesn’t even look shocked to see you, and it would shame you, but you’ve already taken everything that is you and shoved it into Loki’s angry maw. Instead, you place the barrel of the gun against his forehead and fire, watching his eyes as they forgive you. He bleeds just like the rest of them.

How does it feel?

It feels like…

It feels like…

It doesn’t feel like Justice, anymore.

Your father gives you the first real smile you’ve seen from him when you see him next, and you immediately head to the bathroom to throw up everything you’ve eaten. Your teeth feel like they will fall out of your mouth as you rinse it with water.

It’s almost a relief to realize that he tricked you. Of course Joker would trick you. He’s  _ your _ rival, and you demand nothing less than the best for yourself. But the relief is cut through with the fire of anger mixed with fear. If your father found out...then there goes your goals, up in smoke.

You feed it all into Loki, and you ambush Joker’s little group in the belly of the beast. His eyes widen when he sees you, surprise and fear mixing with something you can’t name, lest it stray you from your goal. You point your blade at him and, manic, ask him to finally face you at his best.

He bests you. He always bests you. And it tears you apart when you realize you wanted him to win.

In the span of a few minutes, the entirety of your cognition changes. Facing yourself, the perfect version of you that your father wishes he had, the perfect assassin who doesn’t have the baggage of hating him, it forces you to realize how much of an idiot you’ve been.

You’re not the main character of this play You’re just a bit part, and your final exit is swiftly coming up.

But damn if you won’t make it a good one.

You let yourself feel the shame, the regret, the anger, the sadness, and finally the guilt. You beg Joker to finish out your goal for you. He won’t do it like you would have, but that’s okay. Maybe his way is better, and you should’ve realized that long ago. 

“I’ll hold onto your glove,” he says to you.

You laugh, and it’s the first time you’ve seriously laughed since your mother died.

You kill your cognitive self with the last of your ability. There can be only one, and you refuse to let it be this stupid puppet. No, your bullets go carefully into his head and his heart, and then you let the shadows tear you apart.

How does it feel, Akechi Goro?

It feels like Justice.

**Author's Note:**

> I got wine-drunk and took a uquiz of what Tarot card I am, and I got Justice. Then I got into my feelings about Akechi and how he must have justified all this to himself, and this just sort of spilled out. I hope it's any good.


End file.
